‘God only knows,’ said Owen. ‘How much?’
‘About eighteen bob.’
‘So you see we had to do something,’ continued Easton; ‘and I reckon we’re lucky to get a respectable sort of chap like Slyme, religious and teetotal and all that, you know. Don’t you think so?’
‘Yes, I suppose you are,’ said Owen, who, although he intensely disliked Slyme, knew nothing definite against him.
They worked in silence for some time, and then Owen said:
‘At the present time there are thousands of people so badly off that, compared with them, we are rich. Their sufferings are so great that compared with them, we may be said to be living in luxury. You know that, don’t you?’
Yes, that’s true enough, mate. We really ought to be very thankful: we ought to consider ourselves lucky to ‘ave a inside job like this when there’s such a lot of chaps walkin’ about doin’ nothing.’
Yes,’ said Owen; ‘we’re lucky! Although we’re in a condition of abject, miserable poverty we must consider ourselves lucky that we’re not actually starving.’
Owen was painting the door; Easton was doing the skirting. This work caused no noise, so they were able to converse without difficulty.
‘Do you think it’s right for us to tamely make up our minds to live for the rest of our lives under such conditions as that?’
‘No; certainly not,’ replied Easton; ‘but things are sure to get better presently. Trade hasn’t always been as bad as it is now. Why, you can remember as well as I can a few years ago there was so much work that we was putting in fourteen and sixteen hours a day. I used to be so done up by the end of the week that I used to stay in bed nearly all day on Sunday.’
‘But don’t you think it’s worth while trying to find out whether it’s possible to so arrange things that we may be able to live like civilized human beings without being alternately worked to death or starved?’
‘I don’t see how we’re goin’ to alter things,’ answered Easton. ‘At the present time, from what I hear, work is scarce everywhere. We can’t make work, can we?’
‘Do you think, then, that the affairs of the world are something like the wind or the weather – altogether beyond our control? And that if they’re bad we can do nothing but just sit down and wait for them to get better?’
‘Well, I don’t see ‘ow we can odds it. If the people wot’s got the money won’t spend it, the likes of me and you can’t make ‘em, can we?’
Owen looked curiously at Easton.
‘I suppose you’re about twenty-six now,’ he said. “That means that you have about another thirty years to live. Of course, if you had proper food and clothes and hadn’t to work more than a reasonable number of hours every day, there is no natural reason why you should not live for another fifty or sixty years: but we’ll say thirty. Do you mean to say that you are able to contemplate with indifference the prospect of living for another thirty years under such conditions as those we endure at present?’
Easton made no reply.
‘If you were to commit some serious breach of the law, and were sentenced next week to ten years’ penal servitude, you’d probably think your fate a very pitiable one: yet you appear to submit quite cheerfully to this other sentence, which is – that you shall die a premature death after you have done another thirty years’ hard labour.’
Easton continued painting the skirting.
‘When there’s no work,’ Owen went on, taking another dip of paint as he spoke and starting on one of the lower panels of the door, ‘when there’s no work, you will either starve or get into debt. When – as at present – there is a little work, you will live in a state of semi-starvation. When times are what you call “good”, you will work for twelve or fourteen hours a day and – if you’re very lucky – occasionally all night. The extra money you then earn will go to pay your debts so that you may be able to get credit again when there’s no work.’
Easton put some putty in a crack in the skirting.
‘In consequence of living in this manner, you will die at least twenty years sooner than is natural, or, should you have an unusually strong constitution and live after you cease to be able to work, you will be put into a kind of jail and treated like a criminal for the remainder of your life.’
Having faced up the cracks, Easton resumed the painting of the skirting.
‘If it were proposed to make a law that all working men and women were to be put to death – smothered, or hung, or poisoned, or put into a lethal chamber – as soon as they reached the age of fifty years, there is not the slightest doubt that you would join in the uproar of protest that would ensue. Yet you submit tamely to have your life shortened by slow starvation, overwork, lack of proper boots and clothing, and through having often to turn out and go to work when you are so ill that you ought to be in bed receiving medical care.’
Easton made no reply: he knew that all this was true, but he was not without a large share of the false pride which prompts us to hide our poverty and to pretend that we are much better off than we really are. He was at that moment wearing the pair of second-hand boots that Ruth had bought for him, but he had told Harlow – who had passed some remark about them – that he had had them for years, wearing them only for best. He felt very resentful as he listened to the other’s talk, and Owen perceived it, but nevertheless he continued:
‘Unless the present system is altered, that is all we have to look forward to; and yet you’re one of the upholders of the present system – you help to perpetuate it!’
“Ow do I help to perpetuate it?’ demanded Easton.
‘By not trying to find out how to end it – by not helping those who are trying to bring a better state of things into existence. Even if you are indifferent to your own fate – as you seem to be – you have no right to be indifferent to that of the child for whose existence in this world you are responsible. Every man who is not helping to bring about a better state of affairs for the future is helping to perpetuate the present misery, and is therefore the enemy of his own children. There is no such thing as being neutral: we must either help or hinder.
As Owen opened the door to paint its edge, Bert came along the passage.
‘Look out!’ he cried, ‘Misery’s comin’ up the road. ‘E’ll be ‘ere in a minit.’
It was not often that Easton was glad to hear of the approach of Nimrod, but on this occasion he heard Bert’s message with a sigh of relief.
‘I say,’ added the boy in a whisper to Owen, ‘if it comes orf – I mean if you gets the job to do this room – will you ask to ‘ave me along of you?’
‘Yes, all right, sonny,’ replied Owen, and Bert went off to warn the others.
‘Unaware that he had been observed, Nimrod sneaked stealthily into the house and began softly crawling about from room to room, peeping round corners and squinting through the cracks of doors, and looking through keyholes. He was almost pleased to see that everybody was very hard at work, but on going into Newman’s
